Photo of Baby with Replica BB Gun Draws Ire

In yet another demonstration of hypersensitivity when it comes to all things related to firearms, it seems the social media do-gooders can’t even abide by the fact that a photographer took a picture of a baby sleeping while holding a miniature replica of a BB gun.

Amy Haehl, a photographer with Coffee Creek Studio in Indiana, posted the image on Facebook, hoping to spark nostalgia of Christmases past and the handing down of family traditions, like hunting.

Her goal was to pay homage to “A Christmas Story”—the movie has a scene where Santa tells a young Ralphie, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.” Indeed, she named the child in her photo “Ralphie” and added a disclaimer that the gun was fake to ensure that “he did NOT shoot his eye out during the creation of this photo.”

But the posting fired up gun haters, prompting people to pledge to unfollow her.

“Also unfollowing and unliking you. Extremely distasteful…. Guns are never 'cute', not even as a prop or movie reference,” one social media critic wrote.

Haehl defender her art. “This photo is not about a baby posed with a 'gun'… it is about love, tradition, family, and happiness,” she said later on her Facebook page. “['A Christmas Story'] has encouraged smiles, laughter, and happiness for 35 years. It also happened to be filmed right here in the [M]idwest where I was born and raised.”